


all hours are midnight

by bookhobbit



Category: Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell - Susanna Clarke
Genre: Drabble Sequence, Holding Hands, In The Darkness, M/M, Post-Canon, weird mix of fluffy and sinister
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-20
Updated: 2017-02-20
Packaged: 2018-09-25 21:58:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,515
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9847775
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bookhobbit/pseuds/bookhobbit
Summary: A sequence of moments from life within the darkness.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Been a while. Wanted to get this up before the end of February, though, what with Strange and Norrell going into the darkness then.

1.

In the first week, there is a strange fragile carefulness between the two of them. Mr Norrell would be hard-pressed to explain the precise nature of it, but were he forced to venture a guess, he might say that Strange is not quite himself again yet. A man who has been trees and rivers does not, perhaps, come back to himself easily.

They do not speak of Mrs Strange. Mr Norrell continues to assume that it does not trouble Strange very much. Perhaps.

The darkness creeps in through the windows and the doors; they have no defense against it yet.

 

2.

In the second week, Strange appears to come back to himself enough to be angry with Mr Norrell, as he had promised their first meeting in the Darkness.

Mr Norrell had harboured the hope that this reckoning would not come, and that they would be friends again. Nevertheless, the storm does not take the form expected. There are no recriminations, no opportunities to put forth his prepared justifications. There is only cold silence. It is almost more than Mr Norrell can bear, but bear it he does, somehow.

The darkness seeps into their clothes and hair, and snuffs candles out.

 

3.

In the third week, the storm comes; they argue bitterly up and down corridors and in rooms always slightly too cold. None of Mr Norrell’s explanations – so reasonable in his head – do any good against the force of Strange’s wrath. He sweeps aside excuses with a wave of his hand, demands apologies. Mr Norrell, frozen himself now in his wrath, gives none. Even so, without speaking, they work together to block out the night.

They protect the candles with spells cobbled together from Pale and Belasis, but the darkness does not retreat any further than the edge of the flame.

 

4.

The fourth week, Mr Norrell begins to lose track of time. There is a good reason for this: Strange loses himself again for some little while. Mr Norrell gathers – from the half-shouted explanations that Strange gives only reluctantly – that this is because he will never see his wife again.

“He could have said before,” Mr Norrell mutters as he tries to remember how to prepare the soothing tea Childermass always made when he was ill. He clings by his fingers and tries to pull Strange through.

The darkness settles into their bones, and they do not try to fight it.

 

5.

It must be the fifth week – or perhaps it’s the sixth – when Strange manages to come to himself again. Mr Norrell suspects this is less by virtue of his rather inadequate nursing and more the prospect of doing something. Strange wants to explore Faerie, like Dr Pale; he seems quite resigned to their position now.

Mr Norrell objects to discomfort, so they look for ways to bring their houses along. They are so taken up by magical debates that both forget to mark the passing of time.

The darkness is all around them, and yet they hardly notice it now.

 

6.

Mr Norrell is not sure of when it is that Strange abruptly sits up from his book one day and says, “I must contact Arabella.”

With Strange’s usual inconsistency, travel plans mostly fall by the wayside as they work out a way to reach the outside world without catching another magician up in their net. They consider where precisely to exit Faerie to arrive in Venice, and how to alert Mrs Strange to their presence discreetly.

Mr Norrell is not quite sure why he feels so queer and cold and uncomfortable.

Somehow, the darkness presses in on them harder now.

 

7.

They do not find out that the year has passed into April until Strange visits Mrs Strange. Norrell, lurking rather uncomfortably some distance away from the meeting place, wonders at the warmth of the air; he had been certain it was at best early March.

But the sunlight – that does not reach them. Curiously, Mr Norrell is glad to have a shield between himself and the outside world. Some part of him dreaded this visit and resents it even now, although he cannot understand why.

Was the darkness thinned by their visit, or does it crowd in even closer now?

 

8.

Perhaps it is natural that Strange is a little subdued after the visit. Is that why Mr Norrell had been so displeased with it, when the time came? Because he had known that Strange would stare out the windows and fidget restlessly and that they would get nothing done for days?

He remembers how to make that tea properly, and lights globes of pale fire like peggy-wi’-t’-lanterns, and closes the curtains when Strange stares too long. He wonders why he’s taking so much trouble, and elects not to analyze it.

The darkness lays in readiness, but does not quite pounce.

 

9.

Strange slowly cheers up, but Mr Norrell is distracted by his own troubles. He’s remembered that the last time he’d seen Childermass, he’d sent him away with his face bleeding. He’d been too busy to take note of this until now, but he spends a sleepless night scrying to ensure that Childermass is alive and well.

“You could visit him,” says Strange.

“I do not think he would want to see me,” says Mr Norrell, and does his own time staring out gloomy windows.

In the darkness is every shadow that Mr Norrell has ever cast waiting with raven-feathered wings.

 

10.

When they begin to talk as two friends and not as two magicians, they do it hesitantly, skirting around their losses and disagreements. Until they circle back, inevitably, to the missing pieces.

“Everything I did,” says Strange, “I did for Arabella, and now I’ll never see her again.”

“He was with me for years,” says Norrell, “and I shall never be able to tell him that sending him away was a mistake.”

They look at each other, and do not have to speak.

Perhaps they have found a truce with the darkness, or perhaps they have simply ceased to struggle.

 

11.

Mr Norrell has always found it curious how the miraculous can transform itself into the mundane through force of familiarity. What had once seemed monstrous is now routine.

They have their lists of chores and their habits; they work out ways to wash clothes, and cook food, and keep the fire going. But mostly, they do magic, and talk about magic, and think about magic.

Mr Norrell wonders, with a start, why he is happy. He is so far from everything he has ever known, and yet…?

The darkness is a question to which neither of them has an answer.

 

12.

The _and yet_ niggles at Mr Norrell through months of study and travel. Why had he been so reluctant to let Strange go to Arabella? Why had his sadness distressed Mr Norrell so much? Why does he now feel that, although he has lost much, he is happier now than he had been since Strange had left?

He watches Strange reading in the firelight, and follows him through dim-light forests, and studies his face as though it might, perhaps, contain the answer to the question.

Outside the window, the darkness taps against the walls like a greeting: _hello, dear friends_.

 

13.

The answer to the question comes one day when they are squashing through a marsh. Mr Norrell’s clothes and his joints are both the worse for wear, and he wonders why he came along.

_Oh_ , he thinks suddenly, as if realizing the answer to a riddle, _it is because I love him._

It is an awful revelation, for Mr Norrell is certain that Strange does not return this sentiment. And supposing Strange finds out? Mr Norrell would be forced to bear the weight of his inevitable disgust – trapped with him.

For the first time, the darkness feels like a prison.

 

14.

It is curious, but though he has been in the habit of keeping secrets, Mr Norrell is prone to giving himself away.

Thus: when he and Strange clasp hands for a spell, he holds on a bit too long when it’s done.

In retrospect, an excuse could have been made. Instead, he gives Strange a look of anguish. He sees, then, reflected in Strange’s eyes, knowledge of that revelation from months ago: _because I love him._

He cannot bear to watch it unfold; he flees to his room.

There, he blows out his candle, and lets the darkness claim him.

 

15.

Mr Norrell intends to barricade himself until his shame has passed, but Strange thwarts this by opening the door. In his haste to escape, Mr Norrell had forgotten to lock it.

“Do not lecture me,” says Mr Norrell. “I know I have behaved dreadfully.”

“You have done many dreadful things, and yet a harmless sentiment is the one you reproach yourself for,” says Strange, shaking his head.

Mr Norrell stares.

“I do think,” says Strange softly, “that we might just as well not be lonely.”

Mr Norrell stretches out his hands.

For the first time, the darkness feels like home.

 

 

 


End file.
